AI Edits from Stop Feeling Guilty_ Responding to Their Victim Mindset
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[00:00:00] Today we're going to be talking about one of the ~trip ~trickiest topics in family addiction recovery, which is how to deal with victim mentality, particularly when you're trying to set healthy boundaries. Running into victim mentality can do a lot of damage because it causes you oftentimes to feel guilty to question yourself.
It makes it really hard to stick with the boundaries you're trying to set. And. It is, in some ways it's a way of manipulating you to get what you want, but in other ways it really is just how the person feels. Understanding this dynamic and understanding especially how to respond and deal with this dynamic is going to help you to not feel those guilty feelings, not back down when you're ~trying to hit the ~trying to set and keep those healthy boundaries.
That way you can keep moving forward. Helping your loved one while also keeping yourself in a happy, [00:01:00] healthy, serenity place. For those of you who are new here, my name is Amber Hollingsworth and you are watching the YouTube channel put the shovel down. This YouTube channel is all about helping you understand the science in psychology, and we try to help you understand it ~from both perspectives, ~from the perspective of the person who might be struggling with an addiction.
And from the perspective of the family and the friends and the people that surround that person, because this really is a systems issue. ~And in order to make it better, your best bet is to address the whole system. ~Today we're going to be talking a lot about the dynamics between the person who has an addiction and the family member, and how you can sometimes get stuck in this guilt, resentment trap.
And a lot of times that's provoked by, victim mindset, or at least a victim response to either why the problem's happening, and it especially shows up when you think about setting boundaries with someone who has an addiction. Oftentimes when I am trying to think of what I want to talk about in my Thursday live videos, I try to pull from [00:02:00] either what's going on in my recent sessions or topics of conversation that have come up in our treatment team meetings.
But this week it, this topic came to mind because I was looking through some of the Amber AI conversations. If you don't know what Amber AI is my digital clone, and the people that have access to Amber AI have lots of conversations with her. And I got to tell you, there are some very in depth, very insightful conversations going on in there.
But there was a theme that I saw, and one of the themes was. People asking questions about how do I set this or that boundary? And then, they would get some ideas. They would come up with a whole script, a whole dialogue on how to set the boundary and which boundaries were the right ones.
And then, oftentimes what I was seeing was that either the person would preemptively say I think they're going to come back and say this some sort of victim mentality, stance, or blame me, or something like that. Or I also saw on the ambria conversations that people would say I went to them and I said that and this is [00:03:00] what they said back.
And then I could see in their responses a lot of victim mentality. ~And I could say, ~and that's what. Prompted me to want to talk about this. 'cause~ I was like, oh, this is a, this is an issue, right? ~People are working so hard on how to set totally reasonable boundaries. They're. Taking the time to strategically think about how to communicate these boundaries with tons of empathy and love and understanding, and no matter how hard they try, sometimes they're getting statements thrown back in their face.
A lot of times it's I might as well give up, or I guess you just don't support me, or I guess you're really not here for me in sickness and in health. ~It's some kind of. Blame ~shifting, I dunno if you want to call it that, but it's some kind of way of making the person feel guilty for whatever boundary they're trying to set, whether that's an emotional boundary, a financial boundary a time boundary, all the ones.
And I noticed that it wasn't just in one or two conversations, it was in a lot of conversations that were happening over the past few weeks. ~So thought it would be a good topic for us to conquer. ~I think the place to start is probably to talk about. Why it [00:04:00] happens. Addiction. You've probably heard me say this before if you've watched these videos, but it's fueled by shame and guilt, and I actually have a video series coming out very soon.
I've actually, I've already recorded it, it's going to come out in June. All about how this actually works on the psychological level, but shame and guilt. What it really does is it creates defensiveness inside because we want to protect our own self from those. Really uncomfortable emotions, and one of the ways that we do that is we create narratives and storylines that make us feel less shameful and guilty.
~And like I said, I'm going to cover that really in depth in the video series coming up in June, but. ~For our purposes, I want you to understand that the victim mentality is, it's a defense mechanism where a person actually feels really bad about what's going on with themselves. Deep down inside, they do have a lot of shame and guilt and remorse.
They have really low self-esteem about what's going on, but those emotions are difficult to tolerate for any length of time that it's easier to shift your [00:05:00] attention. So ~one of the, ~one of the reasons why this victim mentality shows up is because it's a psychological defense mechanism to shift the attention to either what the other person's doing wrong or how it's not fair, or how you're not giving them a chance or how you're putting them in a really bad situation.
It's a lot easier to focus on what you're doing wrong and what I'm doing wrong. I think we can probably all agree on that, right? So that's part of it. But that's not the whole story. There's more to it because another piece of it is actually ~what the, especially if not only, but especially if it, you're dealing with a substance abuse type of addiction, ~what the neurochemicals are doing to the person.
Like when you look at something like alcohol or marijuana or anti-anxiety medicines or opioids or something like that, what it does is it's changing the brain chemistry in such a way. That during the rebound effect from the substance, they're flooded with a lot of negative emotional brain chemicals, depression, anxiety, ruminating thoughts, sometimes panic.
And so what happens when ~you're bathed, ~your brain is like bathed and your body and these negative [00:06:00] neurochemicals is everything comes through your filter in a different way than it would otherwise. So everything seems. Worse than it is, it seems more insurmountable. Like the problems are bigger than they are.
Your irritability is high, your resilience is low. So from a brain chemical kind of level, ~one way to think about it's to think about like maybe I. How some of you, ~I know a lot of you that watch these videos are moms and how after you have a baby, you go through ~like ~some postpartum stuff and how you can be feeling like crying and upset, not even know why you're feeling crying, upset.
That's a really good example of just how powerful these brain chemicals can be. So you're looking at part defense mechanism, part neurochemical in that everything does truly feel. Bigger, more difficult, more horrible to them than it might feel otherwise because they're bathed in these neurochemicals now, laying on top of those two things.
The fact that when you have an addiction, you have to spend all of your energy fueling this addiction. It's like [00:07:00] running on a treadmill and juggling knives at the same time, and if you slow down or you miss one of those knives, something really bad is going to happen. ~So you're. Exhausted. ~You're distracted.
You're fueled by this need to keep this whole thing going. ~Every single day, and ~depending on what you're addicted to, if you're addicted to pain pills, you're on this treadmill every four hours, you got to keep this cycle going.~ That's a really ~bad place to be. You got to find the money, you got to get it.
You got to hide the fact that you're doing it. You got to hide the evidence. There's just so much that goes involved ~and ~to keeping up an addiction. ~So you're trying to keep this whole juggling act going. ~You're bathed in these negative neurochemicals. You really do feel terrible about yourself, and so you got these psychological defense mechanisms designed to try to protect you from some of that.
I think you might be starting to see why this happens and it's symptomatic of addiction. You could take pretty much anybody. ~And get. ~And if they're in certain stages of addiction, they're going to feel like this. And they're going to think like this. And I know you know this is true because so many of you are relating to this.
If you're relating to it, put a little hands [00:08:00] emoji in the comments or the chat and say, yeah, I can relate to that. Either I can relate to that because I've been there. I felt that way, or I can relate to that because I get a lot of those kind of responses from my loved one. I hope that understanding where it comes from helps to give you a little insight, maybe a little empathy but mostly some understanding about why it's happening so that you don't take it so personal.
So layer into that when you're trying to set a boundary with someone. Okay, I just want you to stop and think for a second, and I literally want you to imagine your loved one is running on this treadmill. Juggling knives and maybe even balancing a plate on their nose all at the same time, 24 7. And they're also, if they're still functional, they're also going to work or trying to take care of kids or the other things.
~They're involved. ~And now all of a sudden you, with your boundaries is throwing one more difficulty in their way. And a lot of times those boundaries it's just [00:09:00] shift in some kind of norm. It's I'm not going to be doing this anymore, or you're going to have to handle this part from now on. ~And so there.~
Barely keeping their head above water. In fact they're really not consistently keeping their head above water. ~Like they're floundering. ~They're drowning already, and now all of a sudden you're throwing something that's making it harder. ~And I'm not telling you that to make you feel guilty.~
I'm telling you that just to how you understand. From the other person's perspective, what it's like, right? Like they're barely surviving and now all of a sudden you're like, I'm not paying your car payment anymore. Now all of a sudden it's you're going to have to deal with the kids in the evenings.
I'm tired of doing that by myself. Now all of a sudden you're like if you're intoxicated, you can't come here anymore. You can't live here anymore. You going to have to get a job. All these different things, which they're feel like they're barely. ~Surviving here, and ~now you're throwing something in their way that makes it harder.
That doesn't mean you shouldn't do it, because the reason to set healthy boundaries is for yourself. It's because you are drowning. If you don't. Now boundaries can be super complicated and difficult, and I've got so many videos on them. I'm not going to go into too far [00:10:00] here about how to set boundaries and which ones to have.
~But there are plenty of videos on this channel that do go into that. And I've also attached my Boundaries blueprint, my free download in the description below for you if you want to download that to get into. What boundaries you need to set and all that kinda stuff. ~But the thing here to remember is you don't want to set a boundary to try to punish someone.
You don't want to set a boundary to try to make them learn a lesson or get them outta denial. Boundaries are always for yourself. Like I said, there's a bunch of videos on that. Take a look at them. There's a whole playlist of them if you want, but. I just want you to understand why you get this kind of reaction out of them, and a lot of times you get an initial response from them that may fall into this victim mindset, but usually with most people, either after the fact when they've had the time to digest it a little bit, or when they.
Come to their senses and their honest to themselves deep down the side that they know that the boundary isn't unreasonable. But, none of us like a limit put on us. None of us like to have some new responsibility thrown at us. So it's a reflexive reaction to some degree, and it doesn't really mean that they don't [00:11:00] quite understand it.
Sometimes they're just. They just know it's your button, and sometimes they're just throwing it out there and they know they're manipulating you because it always works, and in the past it's worked. So they're throwing it out on you again to try to get you to back off or do something or not do something or whatever it is.
But from their point of view, they're already struggling so much. They already don't like themselves. They already feel like you see the worst in them. Everyone sees the worst in them. The world is against them, and now all of a sudden this new giant problem that you're handing over. So yeah, they feel a little bit like.
A victim because life is not going well for them. The way I describe it to my recovery coaching clients, I'm like, yeah, when you're on the wrong path, the universe just starts squeezing on you like a vice progressively harder and harder, and from every single angle until. ~It either kills you or ~you figure it out to get in the right direction.
So the person you're dealing with literally feels like they're being squeezed by a vice. Now you're probably thinking, yeah, they're doing it to [00:12:00] themselves and there's a little truth in that, right? But when you're trapped in it and you're running on this treadmill and you're juggling these knives, you really do feel like if I stop, all these knives are going to follow me.
~And to some degree that's true too. If I stop, it's going to get real painful for a while, and it does. ~Having a little empathy will help you in how you approach these conversations, which is our next topic is how to approach conversations that make it less likely that you're going to get that victim mentality response.
But sometimes you're just going to get it no matter how you approach it, but at least how to deal with it. ~When you do run into that. And if you see me looking over here, it's, 'cause I got my notes over here on this screen. ~Commonly when you run into this victim mentality, you're going to get one of these three things. You're going to get some version of guilt tripping, thrown at you, some way of trying to make you feel terrible. What do you want me to be homeless? It's cold outside. If you don't pay this electric bill, you know your grandkids are going to suffer you.
You get this guilt tripping thing going on. You also get this. Blame shifting thing~ which is not quite the guilty. It's a little bit different ~where it's like they're trying to say, I'm having this problem because it's [00:13:00] your fault. ~I. ~Examples of that would be, I probably wouldn't drink so much if you weren't always on my case all the time, or I probably wouldn't be gone for days at a time if you wouldn't make such a big deal about things.
So it's, in some ways, it's a way of throwing guilt back on you, but it's actually a way of throwing responsibility for the whole problem back onto you. And then other times you get where it's just a minimizing, where it's like some version of, you're making a big deal about this. Why are you making things so complicated?
It's not that big a deal. Everyone does it like, I work hard. I deserve to X, y, or Z. I'm young, I'm in my twenties. That's what everyone does. So they minimize it and that makes you question whether or not you're overreacting. It makes you really dig down deep and say, maybe I am, making too big of a deal.
Maybe I am over. Controlling or being too harsh or too critical about something. It's a way of making you question yourself. ~All these different victim mentality kind of tactics. ~It's just a way to make you question yourself. 'cause when you question yourself, you're likely to back off. Sometimes they want you to [00:14:00] back off of your boundary.
If that's when this is coming up. But sometimes I just want you to quit talking about it with them. And if they can make you feel bad about the conversation, then you're probably going to quit approaching the conversation. ~'cause it's not very pleasant. ~How many of you that works on you? Put another hand emoji in the comments you're saying.
Yeah, I know that works because it's every time I bring it up. It starts this big argument, or they do this victim thing and I leave feeling 10 times worse. And so now I don't even approach the conversation anymore. ~I bet some of you know exactly what I'm talking about. ~The best way to respond when you get this kind of reaction is to number one, go into the conversation realizing that you're probably going to get this, so that way you're not surprised or shocked or mad or ticked off that you're getting it.
So realize that you are going to get some of this now. Not everyone will say these things to you out loud, but almost everyone will feel this way on the inside. So even if they're not saying it to you, you might be thinking my loved one doesn't do that. They just take full responsibility. ~'cause some people just have better tactics and they know it's better.~
~They're, ~they're just more. Insightful on how [00:15:00] to have these conversations. So they'll take responsibility, but deep down inside, they still feel this way. Okay? So don't fall for that either. They may look good on the outside, but inside they're feeling like, can't believe you're doing this to me.
~This is a bunch of crap. ~So be calm and expect it upfront. That'll help you be calm when you get it. Then I want you to validate their feelings. ~One really. ~I think the best way to go about it is to go ahead and anticipate what their feelings are going to be, if possible, before you even go in the conversation and validate the feeling before they even bring it up.
Like for example, you can say something like, I know this is probably going to put you in a really hard place. I know that, in the past I've done it this way, and all of a sudden I'm changing the rules of game. It's not fair. You can preemptively validate. And I would suggest starting with that because sometimes if you'll start with that you won't even get that response because you've already acknowledged it, so they don't necessarily even have to say it.
So think of all the ways that whatever this conversation is going to bring up some [00:16:00] difficulties for them. Go ahead and say it and then also go ahead. ~In addition to that, and preemptively bring up. There are other probably like I call them like lawyering points where they're good qualities. Go ahead and say, and ~I know you work really hard and I know that you've actually gotten a lot better lately and that this problem, I know you've been contributing a lot more lately.
Go ahead and say what ~that ~you think ~that ~they're going to say to you in their own defense. Go ahead and say that first. They're going to feel more heard and understood when you do that, it's going to make them less defensive for the whole rest of the conversation. But even if you do all that, you might still get some victim mentality back.
You might still get some guilt tripping, some minimizing, some blame shifting, ~all that kind of stuff. ~When they throw that at you, go ahead and acknowledge the truthful part of what they're saying to you. You may not agree with everything they're trying to say to you, but you could probably agree either that you could see how it would feel that way to them, or you could see that there's some truth in what they're saying.
So for example, you might say something like, yeah, I could see you've already, you've made all these big improvements, you have gotten a lot better, and here I am still want more from you. And that's frustrating, right? That's what I mean when I say validate the truthful [00:17:00] parts of what they're saying.
It's going to help them feel heard ~and it's going to. ~Make them less likely to cling onto this victim mentality because they're going to feel hard and understood. It's when they feel like the world, or you specifically are running over them, making their life harder, that they're going to dig into this. Woe is me thinking, validate their feelings without backing down from your boundary.
I know this puts you in a really bad position. I know it doesn't give you much time to figure out this problem. I know this is a change of the rules of the game. Validate their feeling and. Avoid Overexplaining where you're coming from. Focus more on understanding where they're coming from. Don't get into I had to because this is fair because I can't protect you from your consequences.
If you go into that where you're coming from thing, they're just going to get more defensive, you're going to get more of the victim mentality, you're going to. Leave feeling even more frustrated. ~So ~don't over explain. Don't justify. The [00:18:00] truth is they know the deal. There's no need in doing that and hearing it from you is just going to feel like a criticism and there's not going to take it well.
'Cause truth of it is none of us take criticism well. Some of us seem like we take it well on the outside, but even the ones of us that seem like we do well on the outside, we don't do well on the inside. No one likes that. No one responds great to that ~and. ~If the conversation goes on a little further, use some reflective listening.
I talk a lot about reflective listening and these communication techniques in our invisible intervention, ~but the, ~and I go a lot more in depth into them in that, but if you're unfamiliar, what that is to give it to you in its most basic form. It's just repeat back to them what they're saying to you.
~This isn't fair. You could say ~this isn't fair. Literal mirroring. Think of a mirror. Whatever statement they give you, give it back. And if they're giving you like a long statement, take either the most important part of what they said and mirror it back, or the last couple of words. This makes you feel like giving up, right?
That's a repeating back to them what it is they're saying to you, because that's going to help someone feel, again, heard [00:19:00] and understood as opposed to when you try to justify where you're coming from and overexplain, they feel even more like a victim. 'cause you're not. If you're not understanding them, it's the quickest way to get someone's walls down.
It's the most effective way to get someone's walls down. I promise you. It is almost all of what counseling is. Even when I worked in the psych hospital with like acute, severely psychotic people, reflective listening with deescalated situation 98% of the time, like there's a few percent points there that it doesn't always work, but it almost always works if you don't know what to do.
Always go back to reflective listening. It's not going to make it worse. It's only going to make it better. And then other than that, you want to keep the conversation short. So you do want to validate, you do want to use reflective listening, but you don't want to go on and on ~because the longer this conversation goes, the more.~
More likely it is to get ugly. And the more likely you are to [00:20:00] misstep in your communication or for them to say something hurtful that you're going to then have to deal with all that kind of thing. You do these things, but you don't go on hours and hours. In fact, any kind of difficult conversation you have should not last very long.
~And this isn't just for this topic, this is for any topic because. Y ~you are going to be feeling emotionally charged while you're having this conversation. The other person is feeling emotionally charged, and there's only so long that we're going to stay outta that fight or flight zone when we're like that.
So keep it short, keep it brief, keep your tone casual. Control your own body language. If you come into a conversation and you're like this, you're literally communicating with your body defensiveness and protectiveness. So I know this is a lot to think about, but having your own body language in a calm way is not only just going to communicate to them that you're not threatening them, but it's going to communicate to your own brain that you're not in a threatening or a threat position, which is going to help you to stay calm.
Always use a casual tone of voice. Your tone of voice and your body language matter as much as [00:21:00] anything else. And what you're trying to do is you're trying to bi step the victim mentality. Sidestep it. You're trying not to trigger it, but you are going to get it to from time to time. And so knowing how to handle it is important.
Most of all, what I want you to know. Is that you don't have to feel guilty even if they're trying to make you feel guilty. You got to think is this, am I really being unfair to this person? Am I really doing something harmful to this person? And even if your own guilt starts to creep up, you can question that.
You can confront that inside your own self and realize that yes, ~you're, you may be. ~Their situation may be getting more difficult because of something that you're doing, but it doesn't necessarily mean that you're being unfair, ~that you're being mean, ~that you're being mean, that you're being harsh, that you're being critical, even if it feels that way to them, because feelings don't always tell the truth.
Just like you feeling guilty doesn't mean that you are guilty. Just like them feeling [00:22:00] like you're being mean to them doesn't mean you are being mean to them Feelings. Don't really tell us the truth. They do give us pieces of information, but ~it doesn't, ~it's not necessarily truth. And too often we think if we feel a certain way, it means it is a certain way and we got to get outta that.
They have to get outta that, and we have to get outta that too. And then leave the conversation with, if at all possible, on some kind of encouragement or positive note. ~But. If possible, try not to make it sound like cheesy or whatever. ~You can say something like, I know things have been difficult lately, but I know we're going to come out of this on the other side.
And they may, if they're in that victim mindset, they may not like it, but you will at least leave the conversation feeling I kept my side of the street clean. I handled myself in a way that I feel really good about. I didn't get defensive. I feel totally solid about the boundary I'm setting, and I can stick with it.
Now we're about to get to the point in our live video today where we take some comments and questions, so go ahead and get those over there in the chat.
~And in the meantime, I will remind you as y'all are getting those up there, that ~we have more [00:23:00] resources and description. I put that boundaries blueprint link down there for you. And there's also all kinds of other resources. We have some new spots for recovery coaching coming open in June. So if you or your loved one's been waiting for that, now would be a good time to go ahead and apply If you want to secure a spot for June.
We only have so many open spots, so you might want to grab yours now. All right, what do we got? Martin says is an acceptable boundary agreeing that alcohol is not to be brought into our home. I'm finding this issue to be really difficult. This is a great question. ~Okay. I'm going to, I don't know this, but I'm going to assume when I'm answering this question that this person is.~
Age to have alcohol. So I dunno if this is like your kid, your spouse, your uncle. I don't know who you're talking about here, Martin, but this is given the fact that the person is old enough to have alcohol. Okay? And ~if this, ~if you're dealing with someone who has an addiction, whether it's alcohol or anything else, Martin, I get that it is totally reasonable to say you cannot have it in this house, but it's not going to happen [00:24:00] if you're dealing with someone who has an addiction and they live in the house.
They don't live in the house. That's different. If they live in the house, they're going to have it in your house, and so you're lying to yourself if you think they're not going to. Yes, you can set the boundary, but you need to be fully ready to. Hold the line on that boundary 'cause it's going to be in your house.
If someone has an addiction and they live somewhere, ~they're going to need whatever that is on such a regular basis. ~There's no way it's not in your house. And if by some small chance it's not in your house, it's in their car, in your driveway, it is in the backyard. It is four feet from your house. Okay?
Maybe there's a loophole, but it's in your house. So you need to think, is it fair for you to set the boundary? It's probably fair, especially if they're your kid. If they're your spouse, I'm not sure, but is it fair? Maybe is it going to work? Probably not. So you need to ask yourself before setting this boundaries, what you're going to do when you find it.
So you might could say, if I find it in the house, I'm going to throw it out. Although I would suggest you really. [00:25:00] Rethink that. It's not what I would suggest to you to do, but if it's what you feel in your heart is the right thing, then yeah, you could say that. If you say you can't have alcohol in this house, ~or you can't ~or you can't live here, then you have to decide for yourself, am I really ready and can I like legally and logistically make this person leave?
~'cause you're going to run into that. ~They're going to have it in your house If they're addicted, end of story. They just are. ~So think about how you're go ~Next question, and I can't say the name, but I can read the question ~here. You got the little Casper, the friendly ghost profile. Come ~here. Is it possible to get a person out of denial with weed? It's destroying his life, though it seems. He seems to minimize the issue. Tried to quit two times, but ended up in denial.
~Still keeps losing stuff. Okay. ~Really great question. I have a whole playlist about dealing with marijuana addiction, which might be helpful for you, but in my experience, this isn't in a book anywhere. This is just my opinion. ~I. ~Dealing with weed addiction is the hardest addiction that I deal with because it is very difficult to get people outta denial about weed.
It's just more difficult than the other drugs. It's not [00:26:00] so much, it's hard to deal with because it's like a more stronger addiction necessarily. It is a strong addiction, but it's not necessarily like they can't stop. They're going to go into such difficult withdrawals, that they can't stop. They will have some withdrawals, but it's possible to stop.
It's more the denial. Is it possible to get someone outta denial about weed? Yes. It is harder though. But the good news here that I see is that they've tried to quit two times. ~It ended up in denial still. ~That means they're coming outta denial on some level. If they've tried to stop two times, there's a piece of them that knows it's a problem on some level.
Now, they may have moments where they get it and then they say, I'm going to stop, and then they slide back into denial a little bit by saying it's fine as long as I don't use it that much, or as long as I only use Delta nine or whatever. There's many forms of the bargaining, so they probably will go back and forth in denial.
But if they've tried to stop two times, they're not a hundred percent in denial. There is some change talk there. There's some seeds to grab a hold of, and it might help you to either watch our playlist on dealing [00:27:00] with denial or look at our invisible intervention program, which is specifically about how to deal with someone in denial, how to get someone in denial.
The strategies work for any substance, any kind of addiction. It's a little more delicate with marijuana. It's just hard to get people to see. Aisha says, how will addicts act in court after protection order hearing can send them to drug court? How will it affect if they at their work? Okay, hold on. I got to read that again.
That's how will addicts act in court after protection orders, hearing can send them to drug court. This is complicated. Aisha, I feel like there's, this is a little disjointed for me. When you say protection orders, I'm imagining ~like ~like the, what's it called? Where you, where you can't come around someone, but then you're saying drug court.
So it's two different things in my mind, and I guess that's [00:28:00] why I'm confused. ~And then I don't quite understand the work question. ~How do people respond to protection orders in court? They might respond. Okay, because they're, if they, have any judgment at all, they'll. Act appropriate in court? How will they respond after the fact?
I don't really know. I'd have to know more about their personality. I wish I could give you a better answer to this question, Aisha, but ~there's several pieces of it, and ~I'm not totally sure I understand exactly the situation or what you're asking. Phil says. How could you phrase a boundary for a spouse who drinks excessively?
When I'm not home or travel for work, she waits until the kids are sleeping. She is ~the re she's ~the one responsible for them. When I'm not home, you got to tell me what boundary you're trying to say. Like what is the boundary you're trying to set? Phil, I can do a better job of helping you either decide if it's a good boundary or not and or how to say it.
If you tell me what the boundary is. I understand what you're saying is. That your spouse drinks excessively when you're not there, which I hate to say it, but it's to be [00:29:00] expected. They almost always do. I can tell you this from when I said earlier about how to think about where they're going to come from and try to proactively say it first.
They're going to be thinking, what's the big deal? The kids are asleep. I'm not hurting them. It's totally fine. I would ~pro, pro preempt, right? ~Preemptively, ~there's the word ~say that I'd say I know the kids are asleep, and it, whatever. So go ahead and say the part that you know that they're thinking, but what's the boundary you're trying to set?
Are you trying to set a boundary field by saying, you can't do that when I'm not here? If you are, how are you going to back that up? Please don't get drunk and not be capable of taking care of the kids when I'm not home. Okay this is what, this is a request and not a boundary, which is totally fine because like I said before, Phil is like, how are you going to back that up?
What you can say is, and this isn't necessarily a boundary, 'cause if there's a boundary, you have to have a, what I'm going to do instead, which you could do that, but like a boundary would be, Hey. [00:30:00] I don't feel confident that you're not going to drink when I'm not here, so I'm going to leave the kids with the sitter, grandma, whatever.
That would be a boundary. But you don't have to do it that way. You could say, it makes me really nervous when you're drinking, when I'm not there, and I know that the kids are asleep. But it gets in my mind, I start worrying, you know what if there's an emergency and you need to drive them somewhere? But that would not necessarily be a boundary, that would be a request, or as Kim would call it, a, an information update.
I dunno if y'all seen Kim talk about that, but I like the way she calls it that~ yeah, ~if you're worried that they're going to continue to do that field, then you're, the boundary would be, you wouldn't leave them there because they're going~ they're go Kim says, my loved one is always the victim.~
He has quit multiple jobs over this. How can I help diffuse this type of situation, even if I'm not causing the victim response? This is a really good question. So they're not acting like they're victim of you, Kim. They're victim of the boss or the job or the outside situation. It is to use the reflective listening techniques and even though [00:31:00] you don't agree with everything they're saying, find the parts that you can agree with and validate those particular parts of it.
Using empathy and reflective listening actually makes a person more likely to learn and figure it out for themselves. ~If you try to tell them directly the answer or the part that they're missing, they'll be less likely to hear it and see ~it because it makes them defensive. So even though it feels counterintuitive, those good reflective listening, mirroring empathy skills are the best ones to use.
Nanette says, my boyfriend has been in a different city on drugs for two months now, if he wants to come back, is it wise or fair to say he can't come home and he needs to go to rehab? Feeling guilty. Okay. I can tell you right now, he's not going to feel like it's fair. ~Okay. So go ahead and prepare yourself for that and go ahead and say. If you want to, you can preemptively say, Hey, I know that this seems unfair. Or maybe you can say, I know it is unfair. ~If you're going to set that kind of boundary, I wouldn't wait until they're like, literally get packing the car up, coming back home, or whatever.
You want to go ahead and give them some time to think about that ~and I don't necessarily, I don't know that I would say you have to go to rehab but you could say something like. ~I'm not comfortable living with you until you've addressed this problem and it's stable, and you might even want to set a [00:32:00] length of time on it.
Let them figure out how to address it and how to get it stable. ~But I even, and if you're sure about this, then I wouldn't even say, okay, you can come back home. And then go to rehab. ~If you're really serious about setting the sound, then you want to say, not just, okay, I'll let you come home, or you're agreeing to go to counseling or something.
But the problem needs to be stabilized for a certain period of time, or at least until you feel more comfortable. If you don't want to put like a number time on it.
Photo Jack says if you suspect your adult son is slipping outta control, but. Putting on a good front, should you get involved and ask them about it. He says he's doing great, but I can tell inwardly he's suffering. This is a good question. ~It are you, I'm not sure here, ~if you're like, I know they're in a relapse, but they're not telling me or more what you're saying is more like, I feel like they're emotionally struggling, which could lead to relapse.
I think it's completely, appropriate to say, Hey, I know things are going good for the most part, but I get a sense that something's bothering you inside. You don't have to say, I get a sense that you're using. You can say, I get a sense that something's bothering you [00:33:00] inside. Is there something going on?
And they may not tell you right then and there, but you're at least communicating that you're opening the door for that conversation and that you're going to be able to handle it with calmness, kindness, and empathy.
Aisha says, how will addicts act in a protective order hearing? Can we send them to drug court and how it affects their work if they are working? Okay, so you're clearing up the questions. So this is three or four questions here. I don't know how they're going to act in the hearing about the protective order.
My guess is, like I said before, if they have judgment, they're going to act right at least in the court, in front of the judge and the public. ~Okay. I just don't, I don't know the person. Say sometimes people take those serious and sometimes it makes people mad. It doesn't mean you shouldn't do them, they don't always work.~
I don't, you can't send someone to drug court. A judge can send someone to drug court if they ha if the county or the place where you live has that, and usually that happens. So if they get a legal charge, not necessarily a protective order. So let's say they get caught with possession or they get caught stealing or selling or something like that.
Sometimes they can work out a [00:34:00] deal where they do drug court instead of serving a sentence. But you can't send them to. Drug court especially if you're trying to do that in a protective hearing. It's two separate things. And then how will that affect them if they're working?
Usually, if they're in. Drug court. ~It's not like they're away in an inpatient treatment facility, so ~most people are able to stay like in their jobs and working. In fact, drug court wants you to stay working. That's a positive thing for recovery. But it probably will require some flexibility. You will have to attend some appointments, some drug screens, some hearings, and you'll have to have the kind of job that you can flex some hours around here and there to do it.
All right, we are out of time for today. You guys asked some really great questions. As always, I feel like the questions get harder every single week. Thank you so much for showing up live and those of you who're watching the playback, we're glad you're here too. If you want to catch us live, we're live every Thursday at one.
Don't forget. ~As always, there are resources in the description and ~I will see you guys next week. Bye everybody.[00:35:00]
